THE ONE BIG DIGIT OF THE HORSE 267 



Horse, as I shall show — and its congeners have the metacarpal 

 and metatarsal bones fused into one 'cannon' bone, while the 

 phalangeal portions are separate. We know also that the Horse 

 sometimes reproduces the separation of the phalangeal portions in 

 what is commonly called the cloven-foot or Cow-foot. It is true 

 that in ruminants the cannon-bone has usually a groove which 

 indicates the fusion of two separate bones ancestrally, as shown in 

 Fig- 90 {p) ; but the abnormal Cow-foot of {b) shows a similar 

 groove in the lower portion of the homologous bone. 



In support of the suspicion that the Horse's <7«g big digit may 

 possibly be a fusion of the two digits of an Ox-like ancestor, I 

 shall now mention certain other features which are common to 

 certain ruminants and also to Horses. 



(a) In another place I have mentioned that the Horse has 

 frequently a white blaze, and white hands and feet. These features 

 are almost exactly matched in the African Antelope \Damalis 

 Pycargd), the Bont6 Bok. 



iU) The maculations of the Giraffe would appear to be fusions 

 of maculations similar to those of the Horse ; but the maculations 

 of the Zebu of Fig. 58 scarcely admit of a doubt that the 

 markings of the Zebu and those of the Horse of Fig. 36 are 

 identical. 



{c) The brindled Gnu is striped much like a Zebra, and their 

 manes are very similar. Moreover, I have often seen Horses faintly 

 brindled on the neck almost exactly like the brindled Gnu. Then 

 the Gnu's tail is more like that of a Horse than that of other 

 ruminants. On one occasion I was watching the white-tailed 

 Gnus in the Zoological Gardens. One of them pretended to shy 

 at nothing, just as a young Horse often does. 



So that in the Gnu we seem to have an intermediate form between 

 the Horse and other ruminants. It has a short mane, like that of 



